1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a button used for jeans, etc. More specifically, a button being attached to a first fabric and capable of being fastened into or unfastened from a buttonhole formed on a second fabric.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, a metal button has been used for jeans. When a denim etc. is used for the jeans, it is difficult to fasten and unfasten the button through a buttonhole due to its stiff texture.
To solve the disadvantage, a button swingable to a member attached to a fabric, i.e. a swing button has been developed. However, when the fabric is thick at an attachment position of the button and a turnback portion around the buttonhole, difficulty in fastening and unfastening the button cannot be completely solved.
With such background, some patent applications have been conventionally suggested relating to a buttoning tool facilitating fastening and unfastening operations through a buttonhole for a button attached to a stiff fabric like jeans (Reference 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open publication No. 2001-161539 and Reference 2: Japanese Patent Laid-Open publication No. 2003-180407), and a button with an efficient shape to facilitate fastening and unfastening operations (Reference 3: Japanese Patent Laid-Open publication No. 2002-330802).
The former applications employ a buttoning tool having a grip portion and a button holding portion integrally molded therewith with a configuration in which the button holding portion of the buttoning tool is inserted into the buttonhole to hold the button at the button holding portion, and then the grip portion is pulled out so that the button held at the button holding portion is pulled out together and fastened into the buttonhole.
The latter application employs a configuration in which the back side of a button is formed to have a substantially V-shape bending toward the front side by sandwiching a thread fixing portion, and a tip end away from the thread fixing part is formed to be thinner than a base end close to the thread fixing part. In order to fasten the button, the thin tip end is first inserted into the buttonhole, and by pushing the tip end projected from the buttonhole from the front side toward the back side, the base end (the end close to the thread fixing part) pops up, so that the button is fastened into the buttonhole. In order to unfasten the button, by pushing the base end of the button to pass the base end through the buttonhole, the button is unfastened from the buttonhole.
In the applications disclosed in the References 1 and 2, since the buttoning tool is inserted into the buttonhole to hook the button for fastening the button, the operation is bothersome. Moreover, a user needs to carry the buttoning tool all the time in order to use it whenever necessary, thus it is not practical.
In the application disclosed in the Reference 3, since the tip end of the button is inserted into the buttonhole and the projected tip end portion is pushed to fasten the button into the buttonhole, the button is unexpectedly unfastened from the buttonhole easily due to misalignment of the fabric or the like. In order to unfasten the button, since the base end side of the button is passed through the buttonhole while keeping the base end side pushed, unfastening operation can be difficult depending on a width (size) of the base end.